To recap: Spinoza did not prove that substance as he
defines "substance" is a cause of itself as he defines "cause of itself." So
he did not prove that substance exists by definition. Likewise Spinoza did
not prove that there is only one substance that exists by definition. He did
successfully establish a sort of identity between God and substance for no
other reason than that he defines God as substance.

Is this the end of the story? Not really, for the
underlying motive behind the sequence of propositions in the First Part of
the Ethics is to provide a conclusive geometrical or logical proof that
there is no transcendent God. The Appendix is a forceful genetic argument
that there is no transcendent God. The logical proof fails because it
accepts the standard that the propositions must follow with logical
necessity from the definitions and premises. And we have seen above that
they do not. However, the failure is due in another sense not so much from
the rigorous standard of proof as from the conclusion Spinoza tries to reach
in order to disallow the transcendence of God. He argues for a strong
conclusion, namely:

IV.Substance
exists necessarily; it is the only thing that exists necessarily; God is
substance.

By way of an aside Spinoza’s meaning can be a little
more vividly understood if one replaces the intentionally and justifiably
bland term “substance” with the more concrete term “nature,” as Spinoza
himself often did, or even the term “the universe.” If we do that, then we
have a version of the strong conclusion that reads:

(IVa) The universe exists necessarily; it is the
only thing that exists necessarily; God is the universe.

(IVa) is much more easily graspable but only because it
is potentially much more misleading.

Now in order to arrive at the non–transcendence of God
Spinoza only needs to prove a weaker conclusion. The weaker conclusion
appears to be:

V. It cannot be proved that there is anything except
substance.

The vivid counterpart of (V) is, of course:

Va. It cannot be proved that there is anything
except the universe

(V) appears to reduce the burden of proof on Spinoza’s
part while retaining its character as a strictly logical argument. However,
by stating that no such proof is possible, (V) re-imposes an equally high
standard on the success of Spinoza’s argument. Simply because we don’t have
a proof now that there is something besides substance, we cannot conclude
that some clever philosopher at a future date might not devise a proof that
there is something besides substance. That eventuality may seem unlikely but
our standard is logical conclusiveness. “Unlikely” is not enough. We would
need “impossible.”

However, Spinoza does successfully argue for something
else that may be less categorical than (IV) or (V) but is still very
compelling and in fact very revolutionary. It also has the virtue of moving
him closer to his real goal:

VI.The
current logical proof of the existence of God is no more than a proof of the
existence of substance.

Again in order to make (VI) more vivid we can re-state
it as:

VIa. The current logical proof of the existence of
God is no more than a proof of the existence of the universe.

The “current”
logical proof of the existence of God is, of course, the celebrated ontological proof
that originated with Anselm of Canterbury. The First Part of Spinoza’s Ethics through
Proposition XV (Arguments I-III in our discussion) is a wonderfully
sournois restatement of Anselm's version of ontological proof for the existence of God
to show that it proves no more than the existence of substance and that
substance is not God or at least not the Christian God. Spinoza's proof does
not relate as directly to Descartes' proofin the Third Meditation
because Descartes frames his version in terms of mental activity, namely
there must be an external cause for my idea of an infinite substance. At the
stage of the Ethics where Spinoza proposes his ontological proof he
has not even introduced a concept of mind.

Before going on to construct what I believe is a
defensible argument in favor of our version of Spinoza's basic assertions in the First Part
of the Ethics let's clear the decks and formulate a final version his three assertions without using vague
terms like "substance." Let us recall his three assertions are: (I) Substance exists
necessarily; (II) Only one substance exists; (III) God is Substance.
Substance is God.

The revised versions of these assertions are:

VII. Something exists.

VIII. Nothing else exists in addition to what exists.

IX. Call what exists "God" if you want to.

These revised versions probably don't sound as grand
as Spinoza's originals, but they do have the advantage of being defensible.
It may help in understanding the importance of these assertions if one
follows the consequences of proving them. These consequences amount to what
has not been proved by philosophers preceding Spinoza. Specifically
philosophers have not proved the existence of anything in particular, even a
shadowy something like substance. The only thing that can be proved to exist
using their arguments is what exists. Secondly they have not proved the
uniqueness of what they had thought they proved to exist. All they have
proved is nothing exists besides what exists. Thirdly, no connection can be
made between what has been proved to exist and the Mosaic or Christian God.

Let’s now try to rebuild the propositional Tao of the
First Part of the Ethics.

Spinoza’s first conclusion was that the ontological
proof for the existence of God proved no more than that something exists.
What this something may be is not further specified by the proof itself. He
does say that this something or substance is God but from the standpoint of
the logic of his argument alone that is simply a terminological equivalence
(He may have had other rhetorical, political or ironical reasons for stating
this equivalence.) We may with equally justification say this substance is
Jenna and that we have proved by reason alone that Jenna exists. We have
seen above, however, that not only does Spinoza’s attempt to recast the
ontological proof as showing an equivalence between conceptual dependence
and causality fail, the ontological proof itself fails. So none of Spinoza’s
arguments even succeed in proving that something exists. Nevertheless, a
largely valid proof that something exists can be found in the Cartesian
cogito. Spinoza comes within landfall of abandoning the ontological proof in
favor of the Cartesian cogito in I Prop. XI Another Proof 2 where he says
for other reasons, “either nothing exists or a being absolutely infinite
necessarily exists. But we ourselves exist…” The Cartesian cogito does not
prove that I exist or define except in an extremely restricted way what it
means to exist or that I am still not dreaming etc. But we will appropriate
the cogito as the most valid basis for concluding that something exists in
order to move to the second conclusion.

Spinoza’s second conclusion is that only one substance
has been proved to exist (where “substance” is defined only as whatever has
been proved to exist by Spinoza’s proof) and that everything else is just a
mode or an attribute of this one thing. We have seen above that Spinoza does
not successfully prove that only one substance exists if specific attributes
such as extension and thought are defined as attributes, infinite or finite,
of this substance. Still, once we reconstruct the conclusion that there is
only one substance into the more modest position that only what exists and
nothing else exists, then we end up with a proof of the uniqueness of what
exists by definition. At the very least a separate proof would be required
to the effect that in addition to what exists there also exists some sort of
God. And Spinoza’s proof of the uniqueness of substance is
close enough to the scholastic Anselmian proof that there is only one God to
permit us to presume that he is building on his mockery of Christian
theology with this conclusion.

For if nature is substance and only one substance
exists, then either:

a) God is nature.

b)God is an attribute of nature.

c) God is a mode of nature.

d)There is no God.

Even if the first conclusion is a failure, Spinoza
still achieves his goal because the first conclusion fails if and only if
the ontological proof also fails. Even if the second conclusion is a
failure, Spinoza still achieves his goal because the second conclusion fails
if and only if the theological proof that there is only one God also fails.

Note that (a) is the celebrated pantheism whose source
is apparently Spinoza. Yet Spinoza’s text is a strictly logical formulation
that traditional theological proofs about God fail to show anything other
than the existence of nature. He draws no extended system of beliefs or
behavior based on identification of God with nature. Specifically, he does
not recommend ambling through the Alps or listening to Simon and Garfunkel.

Blyenbergh and Bayle lived much closer in time to
Spinoza than Goethe and his pantheistic epigones so one may presume that the
estimation of Spinoza as an atheist on the part of the former is largely
accurate assuming that they did not have political or rhetorical reasons for
defaming Spinoza (which may have motivated Bayle but probably not Blyenbergh).
Even supposedly sober modern philosophers who tend to view Spinoza as a kind
of philosophical forbear of deism are simply wrong and one wonders what
motivates them aside from fear of being labeled Godless communists by the
local deacon. Over and above the problems of pantheism and deism as coherent
religious positions, the view that Spinoza’s philosophy in any way
approaches either position is simply wrong. If anything else was needed to
make it abundantly clear that the First part of the Ethics is meant
to disprove logically the existence of God the Appendix should seal the
deal. The Tao of the First Part is typical Spinoza. First he attempts to
prove his point by “geometrical reasoning” for the benefit of the educated.
This is the primary text of the First Part. Then he draws an argument for
the same conclusion “from experience” for the benefit of “the common herd of
believers,” the “masses, whose intellect is not capable of perceiving things
clearly and distinctly” (Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus). This is the Appendix to the First
Part. In fact, as one may conclude from the Tractatus, this very
two-part procedure is a parody of the relation between Christian theology
and Scripture.

Note 1:
Spinoza
differs from Anselm in his concept of attribute and the notion of thought
and extension as attributes. Anselm does think that the supreme substance or
essence is infinite, without end etc., but he does not use the term
attributum. Spinoza seems to have taken this term from Descartes but he
defines it differently. For Descartes an attribute is an aspect which alone
cannot be detached from a thing (“…un attribut qui m’appartient: elle
seule ne peut être détachée de moi.” Méditation seconde (Pleiade
p. 277) For Spinoza attribute is what the intellect conceives as
constituting the essence of substance. There is ground for belief that,
given the differences between Descartes’ and Spinoza’s conceptions of
substance, their senses of “attribute” may come down to the same thing. But
showing that would be an exhausting and not evidently fruitful voyage.

Note 2: A lot of ink has been spilled beginning
with Leibniz about whether there is only one or many substances. These
ruminations are about as decidable and fruitful as mediaeval hand wringing
about whether God is three-in-one or one-in-three. Spinoza’s sole purpose in
his one substance argument is to use scholastic theology to prove that there
is no God outside of nature. Whether a metaphysical system can be built on
one or many substances is, in the context of the Ethics where genuine
ontological issues such as nominalism and realism are not brought up, is
both trivial and silly.

It is hard to
say what the one substance argument really means or what picture it actually
paints of the universe if it is understood as an ontological claim. Hume
erroneously regarded it that way and ended up calling it a kind of
substrate. Spinoza's substance is definitely not some universal life force.
Certainly the resulting ontology would be an admirable example of simplicity
and economy that would make Ockham proud. For if we regard the one substance
argument as an ontological theory then, according to that theory, only one
thing exists.

Note 3: Spinoza’s one substance proof in the
first part of the Ethics, it should be clear, is not directed
at Descartes’ distinction between mind and body as two separate substances
(It is solely intended to be a mockery of theological proofs that there is
only one God) . The attack on that particular doctrine of Descartes comes in
Part II.

Note 4:
Spinoza tried
to accomplish what very few philosophers have even attempted, namely an
actual disproof of the existence of God using logic alone or the Scholastic
logic that was available to him. He may have anticipated that he would be
accused of engaging in both cloudy speculation and atheism. That would have
been a bit like being fired at from both sides at the Battle of Blenheim.
These accusations are valid except that, as long as Spinoza’s arguments are
accepted as logical, they are far from cloudy. The need for a logical
disproof can be seen if we think of the inadequacies of the alternative
approach which involves two highly speculative metaphysical theories, namely
materialism and the faculty theory of the human mind. Spinoza’s successors
in the 18th century would retreat to the safe haven of Humean skepticism and
Kantian criticism. However, these successors relied heavily on the faculty
theory of mind and, in Hume’s case, on the concept of raw sensory data, just
as the Irish relied heavily on potatoes. Now that we have had to undergo the
Great Sense Data and Faculty Theory Famine, Spinoza’s approach - or elements
of that approach - does not look so bad.

Note 5:
You can call what exists "God" if you want particularly if you prefer not to
have a gang of Dutch burghers drag you into the street. I prefer to call
what exists "Tanya Danielle." She's cuter.

Note 6:
Heidegger speaks longingly of the destruction of Western metaphysics in
Being and Time. You want destruction? Well, this is destruction.
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